Ghost glider

On Tue, 03 Sep 2019 15:57:58 -0700, Darryl Ramm wrote:

On Tuesday, September 3, 2019 at 3:02:50 PM UTC-7, Martin Gregorie
wrote:
On Tue, 03 Sep 2019 10:17:42 -0700, Bob Kuykendall wrote:

The latest Google Maps imagery seems to show that it's still there at
32.9970N, 112.2723W. It's amazing how persistent aluminum structures
are when you keep them dry.

Copy Bob's co-ordinates into Google Earth and zoom in. You can't miss
it:
its 30m SE of Bob's co-ordinates: to be precise the nose is 29.85 m
away on a bearing of 122 degrees. The details are fairly clear at an
eye altitude of 100-150ft AGL, which is about as low as you can go
without Google Earth switching to Street View - and of course nothing
is 3D except the nearest hills.


--
Martin | martin at Gregorie | gregorie dot org

If only there was a way of sharing Google Maps links :-)

https://goo.gl/maps/FvWPRcumTfxp17XG6

Whatever floats your boat, I guess. I prefer GE to any of the mapping
sites for going to look at places because its fast, has nice built-in
measurement tools, and not only dates its imagery but keeps an archive of
all images its ever had of a place and lets you dial through them. In
this case it goes back to 22June1996 - the bush beside the glider is
clearly there, but the image isn't sharp and if the glider was there in
'96, its very faint indeed in that image. However, it was clearly there,
same position and orientation, in 26June2003.

--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

At 02:01 03 September 2019, 5Z wrote:
On Monday, September 2, 2019 at 5:30:04 PM UTC-7, Michael Opitz
wrote:
Read the discussion thread/link in one of the just previous posts. It
provides all the information needed. No need to speculate.

Mike, you probably even met the builder, Jordan Reid when you were
in
Tucson in the mid 1970's and occasionally flying Herbie's ASW-15. :-)

Jordan was one of my instructors, very nice guy.

Tom Serkowski
5Z

Tom, that was a very busy time for me, and it was 45 years ago now.
I just don't seem to remember him or his glider at Ryan field, though
I didn't really spend all that much time there. (Feb-Jul 1974). I do
remember some wonderful flights in Eric's (Herbie) ASW-15, flying
the TSC LP-49, and a young kid named Tom....

RO

On Monday, September 2, 2019 at 1:50:54 PM UTC-4, Nyal Williams wrote:
I have not visited this site in several years.
Several years ago an abandoned and decaying glider was spotted in the desert in the western part of the USA. No one was sure of the make and model of this glider, how it got there, whose it was, etc. Has there any update been made on this mystery?
Nyal Williams

Thanks for all this discussion! It would be interesting to know who put it there. I've wondered about this ever since it first appeared on here.

I remember Steve Koerner checking into it years ago and IIRC it was a one off modified that the first flight scared the builder so bad he abandoned it there and walked away.

CH

On Tuesday, September 3, 2019 at 5:17:06 PM UTC-7, Nyal Williams wrote:

Thanks for all this discussion! It would be interesting to know who put it there. I've wondered about this ever since it first appeared on here.

That's all covered in that other thread.

TL;DR: The builder died, his family sold the ship and trailer, and the ship went to the dump. Airport owner saw it at the dump and took it away to become yard art at the airport.

--Bob K.